Cook County Surgical Care, Trauma, and Burn Fellowship

The Surgical Critical Care, Trauma, and Burn Fellowship is a well-established educational program offering exceptional training in trauma, surgical critical care and burn. With unparalleled clinical exposure, independence, and a formal educational curriculum, graduates are highly marketable and prepared for future independent practice.

During the first year, the fellowship program includes 13 four-week rotations divided between SICU, Burn, Trauma, and electives. Beyond the core rotations, trainees are encouraged to focus their skills in areas of interest or future employment. Electives can be taken in the Pediatric ICU, Transplant Surgery (at Rush University Medical Center), Neuroscience ICU (at Rush University Medical Center), Anesthesia, Medical ICU, or Cardiac Surgery ICU (at University of Chicago). Protected research time is also possible. Fellows are mentored by full-time board-certified Attending Surgical Critical Care Intensivists. Unique to this program is a high level of independence as trainees progress through the program. Fellows are an integral component of the SICU team, and play an important role in the supervision and training of residents and medical students from various institutions around the Chicago area. The formal academic curriculum involves informal multi-specialty discussions, journal club, board review, as well as scheduled M&M sessions.

The optional second year of fellowship is designed for exceptional training in advanced trauma operative management and burn care. The second year is highly customizable depending on the needs and career path of each trainee. Trainees are fully prepared for leadership employment positions with comprehensive exposure to injury prevention, trauma systems planning, education of pre-hospital personnel, resuscitation, rehabilitation, and registry functions.
All trainees are offered ATLS, ABLS, as well as ASSET courses with the expectation to become instructors.

Fellows are encouraged to participate in national trauma organizations such as EAST and AAST. A research project is highly encouraged starting in the first year for presentation or publication in the second year. Although the second year is geared for trauma training, fellows can be eligible to receive special certifications in burn surgery with focused training. Regardless of the area of focus, the fellowship program at Cook County offers exceptional training to the future leaders in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care.

How to apply

Qualifications

Applicants must have completed an accredited General Surgery Residency program by the time of fellowship.